


I fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)

by childishinquiry



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Holocaust, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, soulmate's first words written on your wrists, the usual soulmate fic with a dash of crushing tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2018-09-02 23:39:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8688073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/childishinquiry/pseuds/childishinquiry
Summary: Erik has worn long sleeves his whole life, even before they had to wear yellow stars. Marching along his arm, in neat, black, English letters, are the words "My name's Charles Xavier."





	1. Jestempotworem

Erik has worn long sleeves his whole life; even before they had to wear yellow stars, before they had to move, before they were shuttled onto train cars headed to the camp, he has had to wear long sleeves. His mother insists it is to keep him safe; she also says the fences between them and their _goyim_ neighbors are for safety. Erik asks if the fence will keep the Nazis from beating them, like they did to his uncle last year. She pats his head, her fingers shaking.

In the camps, after he has bent the gate, the guards strip him and look at his soulmark and shake their heads. Baby-eating and usury are the usual crimes of the Jewish, but one such as Erik, who clearly has Satan in his bones, has probably killed Aryan grandmothers with a smile on his face. It’s not a surprise that he’s a homosexual as well.

The soldiers write down the words, _My name’s Charles Xavier,_ looking back and forth from his soulmark to the paper to make sure they’ve gotten the spelling of the English words. Then, they hold Erik down, and tattoo his registration number over them. Erik’s delicate words are covered by thick numbers, **214782** marched across his arm. He is almost relieved; now his sins can be hidden even when he is naked. Which is actually in his immediate future, as he is shoved into a room with an assortment of ashen men and made to don the stripes. He doesn’t understand the significance of the pink triangle, only confused at being stripped of his more usual symbol. The others make sure not to stand too near.

Erik is led into an office. His mother is there, wearing stripes, and the yellow star and forced smile Erik is more used to. Herr Doktor stands behind the big desk, and smiles.

“My name’s Charles Xavier,” says Herr Doktor, and Erik’s mother screams. Erik feels the illusion of safety fall swiftly away.

 

\--*--

 

Erik finds out soon enough that Herr Doktor is not really named Charles Xavier; the Nazis call him Dr. Schmidt, and Herr Doktor calls himself any number of names depending on his mood and who he’s talking to. Erik does not think Herr Doktor’s actual name particularly matters. Charles Xavier is a ridiculous, made-up sort of name anyway, the sort of name a man like Herr Doktor would have, if he has any real name at all. It does not matter, _does not matter_ , if anyone else was ever meant to say those words, if anyone has that name as their own. Herr Doktor has made it clear that he is Erik’s only hope for a future, and no one named _Charles Xavier_ is about to appear in this hell.

Herr Doktor points a gun at Erik, the muzzle resting on Erik’s forehead. Herr Doktor sees his subject’s discomfort, and leans forward, putting a hand on Erik’s cheek.

“It is alright,” Herr Doktor purrs. “You may refuse if you like. You shall simply have to make it up to me in other ways.”

Erik stops the bullet, and Herr Doktor laughs, and allows Erik to eat a full meal in Herr Doktor’s dining room. It has a window that looks over the yard, and the low brick buildings with tall, smoking chimneys, blowing ashes on every soul standing in their shadow. Erik can feel the metal of the heavy, locking doors, and the furnaces. There’s supposed to be showers in that building--that is what newcomers are told. But they’re not showers, and Erik can only watch the grey flakes that used to be his people.

Erik is not sure if he feels more removed from them because of his powers, or because they have been murdered, when Herr Doktor has every interest in keeping Erik alive against his will.

“Don’t look so gloomy,” Herr Doktor says, mouth full of venison. “You’ll never end up in there. As long as you’re mine, you’re safe.”

Erik makes a point of looking at Herr Doktor, saying with his eyes what Herr Doktor wants to see. But Herr Doktor snatches the knife out of the air just before it reaches his temple, and he smiles at Erik, all teeth. “Oh, my dear. Now you’re going to have to _really_ work to get back into my good graces.”

 

\--*--

 

Erik does not think that Herr Doktor truly desires his body; Erik thinks, above all else, Herr Doktor likes to see Erik broken. One time, Erik cries, and tries to forcibly rip the pink triangle from his shirt. Herr Doktor laughs and does not allow Erik to wear a shirt for a week. Herr Doktor makes Erik sit in a chair just to the right of Herr Doktor’s desk, so that all of his visitors can see the livid bruises on Erik’s neck, the sutures from the latest experimental surgery low on his belly.

“You are mine. Our souls are as one,” Herr Doktor breathes into Erik’s ear, holding him close and dancing to a contraband American swing record. These are the words of the traditional marriage vows, older than Erik’s religion, older than the first murder; they are Adam and Eve’s words to each other, and God’s words to his chosen people. God, who, Erik was told, has the first prayer of every Jewish child written across his arms.

Herr Doktor has never taken his shirt off in Erik’s presence, and only rarely his coat. Erik has no idea what first words march down Herr Doktor’s arm, unblemished by a registration number, and Erik doesn’t even remember what he first said to Herr Doktor. But.

“Our souls are as one,” breathes Erik, the ancient reply escaping on his exhale. He cannot even be angry anymore.

 

\--*--

 

One day Erik senses the soldiers, guns in their hands, moving through the camp, pulling prisoners from every corner, out and away. Herr Doktor left a few days ago “for some small business matters.” When Erik senses the soldiers coming into Shaw’s apartments, looking for “that f*ggot Dr. Schmidt plays with,” he closes himself in the cupboard he sleeps in and fuses the hinges shut on the door. They try the handle for a few minutes, pounding and ordering him to come out, but they have more important things to do, and they leave.

It is January 17th, 1945, and Auschwitz is being evacuated.

 

\--*--

 

Ten days later, the Red Army arrives; Erik is still in the cupboard, lying on the floor with spots swarming his vision and his tongue cracked and bleeding. The hinges are still fused, and when he realizes the voices outside the door are speaking Russian, he finds he does not have the strength to unstick them. But he moans, surprisingly loudly. They manage to reduce the door to splinters.

“Jesus Christ,” one mutters, standing over Erik. Erik hated his language lessons, but he always liked Russian; it’s guttural, and quick to anger. And it was close enough to Polish that Herr Doktor didn’t have to punish him for too many mistakes. “Look! He’s got the pink mark. How’d someone so young end up a pervert?”

Erik tries to wet his tongue, put Russian words into the air, but he stumbles and chokes; Polish comes out instead. “ _Jestem Żydem…_ ”

“What was that? Yasha, what’s this kid saying?”

“I don’t think he’s a kid. All the prisoners look twelve, with how they’ve been starved. Bet you he’s twenty five and a rapist to boot. We ought to shoot him.”

“ _Jestem Żydem...jestem Żydem…_ ” Erik manages. The metal of their belts and guns and every little fiddly thing on them, Russian coins and Polish coins, Erik can feel it all, and it all swims and swirls. For once he is not sure of his position relative to the Earth; he finds himself floating, disconnected and so far from anyone or anything. It’s blissful.

“He says he’s Jewish.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Look, we can tear the triangle off, see? He’s a kid, no matter what you think, Alexei, and he’s been _sealed in a cupboard._ Fuck if I know why, but I’m not killing anyone those kraut bastards wanted to be dead this badly.”

“ _Jestempotworem_ ,” Erik tells them, and passes out.

 

\--*--

 

Erik is not sure how much time passes until he realizes that he’s letting himself be taken care of; he spends most of it navigating a limbo of delirium, seeing pinwheeling images of blonde girls with swords and demon men and German endearments whispering, always whispering, into his ear. The Red Army is replaced by the Red Cross and at some point, someone sits down and holds his hand and tells him that his family is all dead. At this point, it seems redundant.

Erik leaves well after he would like to, after he regains full awareness but before his body can do much but lie there, which means nights in a hospital, facing the ghosts of what he thought would be his entire life. His hands shake uncrontrollably whenever he sees a hint of pink, his legs buckle when he sees families reunited. He wears long sleeves, and he swears a parting bruise on his ribcage will fade no sooner than the tattooed numbers.

When Erik finally leaves, he steals a jacket and a scalpel, and trudges east, towards Germany. The war is ending; he will have to hurry if he wants to catch the rats before they flee their sinking ship.

 

\--*--

 

Erik is pretty sure that, as the good guy in the situation, he should feel some small remorse when he kills Nazis, but that is not what he feels. He feels rage and satisfaction. He loves the way their eyes will go wide when he flashes his numbers, his mutilated soulmark. He loves the way they know. Every one of them scrambles to survive, but in the end, they know that he is the seraphim of wrath wrought in the form of their worst nightmares, that justice has come to account for their crimes.

“Let’s just say I’m Frankenstein’s monster,” Erik says, to the man in Argentina. He’s said it before, to plenty of Nazis, and to Erik it’s true. Herr Doktor would kiss the cuts he’d just made and whisper, “my creation,” and Erik hears those words constantly in his own head. Herr Doktor whispers to him under the covers, in the noonday sun, in elevators and at beaches and on airplanes. Erik sometimes thinks of soulmates, in a distant way, and he cannot fathom the idea that any person might speak words louder than the screaming in his own head. Much less that the name _Charles Xavier_ could ever be said without his stomach dropping into an abyss.

Erik has downtime, occasionally, when he needs to wait for files or a contact or a wound to heal. He is a monster, so naturally, he has monstrous desires--strong shoulders, dark eyes. Men. He ignores those, and goes after women instead. He likes women well enough; they’re not handsome like men, but they laugh and sigh quietly and do not require him to be on his knees. He becomes known in the towns he most often passes through, Berlin and Rio and Paris, for being a good, friendly time for a woman, for being respectful afterward and not caught up on things like soulmarks and boyfriends and tomorrow, which makes him more popular than he expected. Erik likes it, the idea that he is some sort of honorable scoundrel to them, and if he were a different person in a different time he would consider many of these women to be his friends.

Once, however, on a layover in Krakow, Erik indulges the monster. He has not been back in Poland since he crossed into Germany half-starved and full of vengeance, although he maintains citizenship as a matter of course. He finds himself in a bar, in the neighborhood that used to be the Jewish ghetto. It is head-poundingly terrible and viciously pleasurable all at once, to see the difference the years have made. When a slim man sits next to him and asks about the look on his face, Erik lets his guard down, admits what this neighborhood means to him. The man was not in the camps; he says his family harbored their neighbors in their basement and that they all wore cyanide capsules in lockets around their necks. He still has the necklace, now empty and tarnished with age.

The man’s eyes are hooded and his lashes are thick and for once, Erik actually feels connected to a human being, so Erik shoves the man against a wall in the alley behind the bar and kisses and bites him in equal measure, the man moaning with pleasure beneath him. It is heady and too much and too little, and Erik is close to losing control and ripping the man’s pants off by the zipper when the man whispers, “On your knees, _schatz.”_

Erik does not kill the man with his own necklace, but it is close, because all Erik can see is Herr Doktor, his smile too wide, his hand in Erik’s hair as he pushed Erik down and said those words, those words, roaring in his ears even over the constant assurance that he is monstrous. Erik runs the whole way back to his hotel, and every streetlamp he passes bends and tries to follow him. When Erik wakes in the morning, his bedframe has turned into a series of spikes, embedded in the walls and floor around him, facing out, protective. The skin around his soulmark, his numbers, is raw and bleeding; dark red-brown gunk is crusted under his fingernails on his opposite hand.

In Erik’s dreams the Red Army’s soldiers do not rip the pink triangle off. It is sewn into his skin, and they laugh and close the closet door behind them as they leave.

 

\--*--

 

Erik is at the beach, because even monsters like the beach. Although, they like it more when they haven’t just been clocked with a rubber ball.

“Sorry, sir!” exclaims a young girl, flying towards him with golden hair and eyes as blue as her ball. Erik holds out the ball to her in an attempt to keep her at the furthest distance humanly possible. She stares at his arm.

“What happened to your soulmark?” she asks, because all children are assholes at heart. Her soulmark is bold and takes up her whole forearm, lines of expression and emotion flooding over her skin. It’s in English, some sort of quote, probably, although he doesn’t recognize it. Being a soulmark, it’s as likely as not the author hasn’t actually written it yet. Erik is able to read _I fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)_ trailing up to almost touch her palm before she turns her wrist inward, childishly possessive.

“I am Jewish,” Erik tells her, because even if he were inclined to lie or obfuscate he would not do so to someone whose soulmark runs over, who has never seen genocide and never would have, with her blue, blue eyes. “The Nazis destroyed my soulmark because they thought I did not deserve to have one. So now I do not.”

The girl cocks her head, considers this, looking into Erik’s eyes, looking at the sand her ball left in his hair and the knobbly skin on his arm. “That’s really sad. But numbers are just numbers. They can’t make your soulmate go away, right?”

The girl runs off. Erik is not tempted to kill her, surprisingly, but he has nightmares for a week, Herr Doktor saying _My name is Charles Xavier_ to him well past the time the words lose all meaning.

 

\--*--

 

Erik hopes it will be easy, even as he suspects it will not, to kill Herr Doktor. He does not anticipate the telepathic woman, who not only stops him cold, but rifles through his worst memories in vivid technicolor usually only reserved for the worst flashbacks.

 _You’re a mess, sweetie,_ she says in his mind, her voice as cold and sharp as her diamond skin. _You think he can be killed? You got out. You should have_ **_stayed_ ** _out._

Erik is weeping against his own will, paralyzed by the way she drudges up things he’s managed to bury for years--the feeling of Herr Doktor’s teeth on his neck, the press of his fingers at the small of Erik’s back. Erik tries to stab Herr Doktor through the haze, but the blonde bitch throws him overboard and they have a fucking _sub_ , of course they have a _sub._ Erik holds on and holds on and _holds on,_ but he is pulled under. He is drowning at at least thirty miles an hour. Erik tries to pull at the screws, weaken a bulkhead, decompress the craft. Drag them to hell with him.

A weight latches onto him, fingers scrabbling for traction on his chest. Wordlessly, his mind is cleared of Herr Doktor standing over Erik, of the ash billowing out of smokestacks and his dead mother on the floor. As his fingers loosen and the submarine plows on without him, his metallic control cut, he realizes he is at the mercy of-- _another_ telepath? This telepath’s mind feels like honey and warm blankets, not ice and rage, and he flails all the more at it. He scrabbles for their throat, their skinny wrists. He is brought to the surface, and pushes himself out of the telepath’s arms, turns to face them.

Erik does not expect the pathetic, small man in a soaking suit treading water before him, wet brown hair flopping into large eyes. His arms felt stronger, his mind bigger. This man does not look the sort to control other men, much less to cut the strings of Erik’s powers so utterly.

“Who are you?” Erik asks.

“My name’s Charles Xavier,” the man says.

Erik pushes the man under the water by his throat, both hands squeezing tight. The man’s fingers seek for purchase, try to pry at his thumbs and elbows and reach for vulnerabilities, but Erik dives, pushing him further, going deeper. Erik smiles at the frantic widening of the man’s eyes, and the salt water seeping past his teeth tastes savagely good.

The man stops struggling, puts two fingers to his temple. Erik’s hands betray him, forced to open. The man swims out of reach, but he does not move to surface.

 _Why would you do that?_ the man asks in his mind, shocked, outraged, very British. Erik hates it, scratches at his temples as if he can dig the words out. _I am_ _not_ _Shaw, nor am I his telepath. I am here to_ _help_ _you._

No, he lies, the telepath has raked through his mind, spilled his secrets into the air like a shotgun blast to his gut. The words, hidden so long, but he sees them now again, the dim memory, as the Nazis prepped the tattooing needle, the one last look at his young, unmarked arm, the words _My name is Charles Xavier_ , and the way it has been layered over, with numbers and blood and scars and blood and scars.

The _oh, God_ is both a concrete statement in Erik’s mind and not; Erik feels the shape of the telepath’s thought, but within the shape there is not so much structure and meaning as there is emotion, visceral, pounding in his head as hard as his heart. Sadness, shock, tremulous emotions without names, that feel the way Erik felt when he was starving inside a cupboard.

The man grabs at his own coat, struggles with it. They are both of them running out of air; Erik is confused and does not know if he wants to surface alone, or if he wants to watch this man drown, and then die himself. Erik is not even sure if time is actually moving at the proper speed. It seems months before the man manages to wrest his coat off one arm and stop, then years grappling at the button on his sleeve, holding it to. The button pops off, and the man reveals his arm, in jerks of the fabric that take less than a second and days, simultaneously.

They’re at the crook of the man’s elbow, where the skin is palest, and the words are all the more stark for it. _Who are you?._

  
_My name_ _is_ _Charles Xavier,_ the man says to him, staring into Erik’s eyes. Erik is caught, and he is not sure if he is trapped. _It is really, truly, Charles Xavier, and I am so, so sorry._


	2. Mindfulness

A cheerful American pulls them out of the water, talking brightly about being right about mutants, damn it, and what the CIA will do next to find “Shaw.” There is nattering and noise and blankets thrown over the pair of them. Erik does not realize he has been staring at the--Charles, for lack of a better name--until he looks away. He sees he has been put inside somewhere, in a tight cabin, with Charles. Alone.

“I--”

“No,” Erik says. He’s not sure what to. “Show me again.”

The man dutifully drops his blanket, rolls back his sleeve. _Who are you?,_ still bold and black and final. Erik touches it. It is as smooth as the inside of a slender, academic man’s arm should be, and Charles shivers.

“May I see--?” Charles asks.

Suspiciously: “You’ve already seen it.”

Charles nods, idly taps at his forehead. Smiles. “Sorry about...well, making you let go. It won’t happen again. Won’t even go in your mind at all, if you don’t want it.”

Charles’ throat is purpling, the way Erik has seen his own do in the mirror. It surprises Erik that he doesn’t feel good about it. “Forgive me if I don’t take you at your word.”

“Of course.” Charles’ shoulders slump. “Christ, of course this is how it goes.”

“How it goes.” Erik shakes his head. “How do you mean?”

“I mean--” Charles laughs, gestures uselessly. “I mean I have been looking and hoping, and waiting, jumping at every introduction. You would not believe how many people ask _Who are you?_ as a way of starting a conversation, it’s horrific, really it is. So of course when you do come along, it’s something like _this_ , something so-- _”_

Something like a monster, trying to drown you when you meet. Erik understands; the boy who was born with these words on his arm, the ones meant to bring him before this impossible, strange man who might actually be Charles Xavier--that boy is not the same as Erik, the man with scarred flesh for a soulmark. Christ, Charles was probably expecting a _woman,_ it isn’t like men have a monopoly on _Who are you._ Charles expected a woman, to dance with and kiss and marry in white in a beatific fantasy, the sort of thing that Erik never had the luxury of imagining. Erik knows he is a monster, knows, knows, _knows_ he was made in Herr Doktor’s image for Herr Doktor’s use, but it _hurts_ like antiseptic to know for a fact that he is not at all what his soulmate wants or desires. He didn’t even want a soulmate, but he fucked up meeting his anyway.

Erik can believe that this man is Charles Xavier, if only because the cruelty of it all is so typical of his life so far. It aligns perfectly, a last puzzle piece in the portrait of the monster.

“Apologies,” Erik manages, goes further, bows his head and sneers, as if he could summon contempt for anyone but himself at the moment. “Excuse me.”

Erik turns and walks out of the room, Herr Doktor so loud in his ears that he does not hear the beginnings of a protest follow his steps out the door.

\--*--

Erik goes with the Americans because there’s no other options, really. It’s unfair of him, but he blames Charles for it. If Charles hadn’t made him let go of the sub, at least he could have drowned. That would be miles better than all this CIA nonsense about _paranormal facilities_.

The first day, Erik eats dinner in their little cafeteria and a scientist in another wing of the building sits down across from him, despite Erik’s best efforts to set him ablaze with his glare. The scientist quite seriously tells Erik about his work in attempting to capture ghosts using proton beams. Erik excuses himself, waits a few hours in his room, and then power-walks his way out the building (with their file on Herr Doktor, of course, he’s not a dumbass).

Charles is waiting for him at the exit. Erik has known about telepathy for less than a week and it is already his least favorite thing in the entire world, even past wasps and daytime television and the niggling fear that his mother loved him despite his soulmark, but might not have liked that he moves metal with his mind and kills people.

“I thought you said you wouldn’t get into my head.”

“I’m not. But I’ve been a telepath for most of my life, I can’t help knowing what people are likely to do.” Charles strolls, actually _strolls_ , like the posh private school idiot he is. “I’m surprised you lasted this long. I thought you’d have ditched before we even got this far.”

Erik shrugs. He really doesn’t owe any explanation to this man, despite the small feeling that he does. He walks down the path.

“Although,” Charles calls, “I wish we could have gotten to know each other better.”

Erik freezes. Why is he being toyed with? “You’ve been in my head. There’s nothing more to know.”

“There’s more to you than you know, Erik,” Charles says, with certainty. “And, I only scratched the surface of your mind. I actually know precious little about you.”

“You know my name without being told. You know my past, and you know all about my--” Erik looks away, and gestures uselessly at the soulmark, not just at the universally recognized significance of the written-over numbers, but at the words underneath, what _that_ means as well. Fear and experiments and pink triangles.

“Yes.” Charles looks sad; Erik has no idea what that means. Is he pitying? Is he trying to relate his own problems to Erik’s all-encompassing tragedy? If he is doing either of those Erik will divorce him from his spine, but Erik--can’t be sure. Charles, somehow, just looks sad, as if he is simply sad, without qualification or comment. “But that is not all you are.”

Erik has no fucking clue how to respond to that, because it’s the stupidest thing he’s ever heard. Of course it’s all he is. Erik may travel around the world and occasionally steal Nazi gold or see a movie, but those are surface traits. At his heart, he is a gay Jew Nazi killer Frankenstein. That’s it. He doesn’t have it in him to be anything more.

“Erik.” Erik looks at Charles; his face is drawn tight, serious. “We can find Shaw better together than we can apart. Just because you are not accustomed to help doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take it.”

But help always comes with strings attached. Although, true, in this case, the strings are obvious: Erik will have to... _deal_ with this tangled mass of Charles, and his floppy hair and _expectations_ , as well as slipping the noose of the US government when that time comes. It’s not any better or worse than killing people on his own time, and Erik is prescient enough to know that he actually shouldn’t be alone with himself right now.

“Alright,” Erik says, eventually. Charles smiles like an idiot.

\--*--

Erik doesn’t say or betray it in any way and he’s not sure that even Charles’ quick eyes notice, but he’s fucking terrified by Cerebro. It is a mammoth monstrosity, a testament to science and experiments and Charles is willing to have his brain split open and flung out of his body _because he is the dumbest man to ever live._ Erik feels his powers flooding in his veins in time with the rapid beat of his heart, and he knows in his fear he is perfectly capable of crumpling Cerebro into nothing without so much as blinking. He holds back, barely, barely. He says something condescending and aggressive to Charles, but Charles responds with a good-natured smile, and Erik isn’t sure what to think of that.

Cerebro turns on, and Charles jerks, trembles. Erik could rip everything apart, but he _won’t_ . Why should he? It’s not his fault Charles is so blatantly self-destructive, that Charles doesn’t know how dangerous it is to trust so much as a toe, much less his brain, to scientists and their contraptions. Charles himself is a goddamn scientist, he _thought this was a good idea._ If his brain melts or the CIA decides it’s not enough for Charles to use Cerebro on his own terms, that’s his own damn fault. It has nothing and will continue to have nothing to do with Erik.

Charles laughs; Erik feels like socking him upside the jaw. Charles steadies, flush and bright with power, and the computer starts spitting out paper.

“There’s _so many_ ,” Charles mutters, later, in the cafeteria. (Erik does not want to sit with him, but when Erik sits alone, people seem to labor under the impression that he lacks for company.) Charles’ eyes are still a little unfocused.

“How many? A hundred? Five hundred?” Erik throws out. He’s not terrific at math, but he knows Charles reached all the way to northern Maryland before he found the girl at the strip club they’ll be frequenting tomorrow. Erik’s actually highballing his estimate; if he were an American mutant, he would want to keep an eye on how aware the US government was of his existence, so he imagines there must be a few more around DC than in most areas.

“Thousands,” Charles whispers, to his plate of food. Then...he looks sad again. “Thousands, and so many of them afraid and alone.”

Thousands. _Thousands?_ That would mean Erik has passed mutants on the street, definitely. Talked to some, probably. It’s even likely that some were in the camps with him, too.

He thinks back to the diamond woman. _You got out._

He didn’t get out, not really, but...God knows what happened to anyone else that might have been strapped to the table.

\--*--

Angel Salvadore is all raw ends; pretty much every mutant they meet is. Apparently Charles’ kind, polite, rich-boy nature is the exception out of a population of punk kids and taxi drivers and supermax inmates. Even Raven is in turns bristling and overly bright, even though Erik hasn’t seen even a flicker of her power.

“She can become anyone,” Charles tells him over dinner, and it feels a little awkward, as if Charles is telling a secret told in confidence. “She can even copy voices, it’s quite remarkable. She can make up people, if she pleases, although she says that’s harder.”

“So is that her true form?”

“No,” Charles says, seeming surprised that Erik thought to ask. “Well, it’s her general face and shape. But she’s actually blue.”

“And scaly.” Raven slams her tray on the table, her food jumping. She glares at Charles. “And red-haired and yellow-eyed and full of all sorts of _fascinating_ mutations, isn’t that right, Charles?”

“Well, yes,” Charles says, looking at his sister and seeming shocked and confused at her anger. Erik wonders how old Raven was when she asked Charles to stop reading her mind; he wonders if Charles understands why she did. “It’s quite fascinating, really--”

“Please don’t bore Erik with your thesis, Charles,” Raven says, warming with exasperation. Her eyes flick to Erik’s arm, bared by the careless shove of his sleeves up to his elbows. Erik hasn’t thought much of showing it in years, since the words are unreadable and most people look away once they realize what the numbers mean. Despite the obvious contention between the siblings, the look in her eyes says Charles has already told her about the soulmark. Raven catches him catching her.

“I’m sorry,” Raven says, her eyes holding his. She blinks, very deliberately, and her eyes are yellow, her pupils strangely diffracted. She reaches out and stops just short of his hand on the table. “That should never have happened to you.”

“Raven--!” Charles starts, embarrassed, but Erik holds up a hand.

“What happened to you?” Erik asks because he knows, knows, _knows_ that look as well as his own face, because it’s _been_ on his face.

Raven rolls her shoulders expressively, in the way Erik often does as he tries to shake the tingling of old scars off his skin. “I met Charles when I was ten. I was lucky.”

Erik slants his eyes at Charles. Charles looks back, shrugging. The fact that his sister, who has to hide from the world every day, looks at Charles like he is the rising sun--Charles shrugs as if this is no big deal.

Well.

\--*--

Erik realizes later that he never intended to bare his arm around Charles, that he meant to keep his skin private even if his mind wasn't. He also realizes that Charles had spent most of dinner very seriously studying the linoleum of the table, a faint pink color to his face.

\--*--

Emma Frost is secured to the bed, by the bed, and Charles is blazing fury, his hair flopping as he sticks a finger in Erik’s face.

“You shouldn’t have gone in without us,” Charles hisses, jabbing his finger again. “You could’ve been hurt.”

Erik rolls his eyes. “By what? Their _bullets?”_

Charles stops, and smiles, for just a second, momentarily awed and amused that Erik can make light of weaponry. He scowls again. “We agreed to do this together!”

“Yes, and how many soldiers have you incapacitated in your life?” Erik asks, while--smiling? No, that’s a sneer, surely. “This is the part you’re good at, the mind-ready part. I just made sure you didn’t have to dirty your hands, Xavier.”

Charles huffs and makes to reply, when a small voice says, “He’s Charles Xavier, isn’t he?”

They turn. Emma Frost is still in her diamond form, hard and impenetrable, but the expression on her face is open. She’s looking at Erik, heartbroken.

Erik shrugs. “He is. What of it?”

“Shaw told me what he did to you, what he’s done to others. How he stole your first words from you.” Emma’s face twists, full of sadness and savagery. “He told me what he was doing to me.”

Erik nods. “Makes sense, since he can’t hide it from you.”

“He can hide anything from me. He can _do_ anything he wants,” Emma grits out, straining against her restraints. “But if that’s Charles Xavier--”

“He can’t control you,” Erik breathes, realizing what she’s thinking. “You think because Shaw wasn’t able to force himself into becoming my soulmate that there’s hope for your own.”

Emma shakes her head. “Not hope. But a better option than Shaw.”

“I’m not entirely sure if that’s how it works,” Erik admits. Emma Frost is a mega-bitch, and he doesn’t like her; she still deserves the truth in this. “But if you want, we can lock you up in the United States government’s deepest, darkest cell while you figure it out.”

Emma smiles, and dissolves into a woman. “I’d like that.”

\--*--

Their band of merry mutants run, filling the halls of Westchester with their noise. Erik thinks they fear that if they get too quiet, Darwin’s voice might whisper in the silence. Erik knows they’re right, and he makes sure to get Angel and Sean into an argument about who gets the bathroom with the claw-foot tub. (They all have claw-foot tubs. _Charles._ )

Charles strides up beside Erik, taking it all in with crinkle-eyed amusement. “I wonder how many mutants get to experience this. To talk to one another, to…well, try to build a home together.”

Erik gives Charles side-eye. That is disturbingly domestic, to him, and Charles huffs at him.

“I mean, we’re genetic quirks of fate. So, how many mutants have mutant families? Mutant friends? Has our kind ever had a community before?”

Erik swallows, and his heart plummets. He didn’t realize what he was getting into before it was too late, but Charles is right, of course. Their set structure is training each other, training themselves for Herr Doktor, but they’ve moved into a house, into expansive and beautiful grounds. They will grow together, in a way that living in a facility didn’t allow. Erik knew what that meant, once, to grow up sheltered within a group of like people. He knows exactly how powerful it is, and how vulnerable it makes them, to set out on this path. He isn’t sure if the hollowness in his chest is from an aching longing or from terror.

Erik turns, squinting his eyes out the window at a long, green lawn. Assessing. “Not exactly a fortress, is it?”

“I’ll have you know the gardeners are quite fierce,” Charles says, brightly. He then taps his temple. “And I’ll know if anyone comes, day or night. We’ll be prepared.”

“Your range extends that far, without Cerebro?”

Charles twiddles his thumbs, smile neutral. “I can reach into town, if I concentrate. That’s not with singular focus on every mind, of course, more of a blanket coverage of intention and emotion.”

“Of course.” Erik looks at him, closely. His face has amusement on it, but Erik realizes that it’s incredibly mild, just like almost every other emotion Charles expresses. “When we met, you were able to cut off my access to my powers. Would you be able to do that, with the children? With an attacker?”

“Erik, I think you’re worrying a bit much. Our anonymity will protect us.”

“And you’re dodging the question.”

“I suppose I am, yes.” Charles looks away, his voice sounding even further off, even more flat and unaffected. “Erik, I don’t want your fears of me--of my name--to be even further grounded in truth.”

“Just tell me.”

Charles sighs. He puts his hand on the glass, tracing the line of the panes. “Erik, I could make any one of you lose access to your powers if I wished. I could send you all to sleep, stop you in your tracks--stop your heart, if I cared to figure out how. I do _not_ care, but that doesn’t change the fact that I could.”

Charles looks haunted, and this does seem to be genuine. He’s a gentle man, a small man, with manners and good breeding and this ridiculous house and its trappings. But the look in his eyes, as they glow out of the lengthening shadows, isn’t refined and held back and civilized. It’s familiar; it’s power, plain and simple, shining out of someone with complete knowledge of their ability to destroy you.

“Erik, I could do some very awful things if I wanted to,” Charles murmurs. He is looking at Erik’s ear; he doesn’t seem quite able to look Erik in the face, to hit him square on with those glowing eyes. “I could hurt so many people. And I know this won’t be any consolation to you of all people, but _I won’t._ I try to ignore it, really. But, if we are in danger, I will cross my lines to keep us safe. I will do anything to protect us. And that is the problem.”

Charles shakes his head. His eyes dim as he moves to stand in the light. “I’m sorry, Erik, that was a bit of a ramble. But we are safe; no need to worry about that.”

Charles wanders away, calling after Raven. Erik puts his hand to the glass, feeling the fading warmth of Charles’ touch. Charles’ ghost lingers there, possibly literally, in the warmth and in Erik’s mind.

  
Erik’s fingers tremble.


	3. Heads, Tails

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Figuring out each other.
> 
> Update 6/27/17: So I'm truly horrific about catching when I accidentally slip into past tense. Expect more chapters when I've gone through the whole fic, AGAIN, to catch my "was"es.

Erik has gone through the motions of the past week, putting in his two cents on setting up the training schedule--how such raw power and youth should be trained. While he doesn’t have much experience in practical education, he has the advantage over Moira and Charles of having been a mutant in combat, and he wheedles them until they agree to some of his more extreme measures. Erik doesn’t care what powers you have, learning to hold a gun steady and shoot seems pretty basic to him. As is what Erik calls “dirty basement fighting,” and Moira calls “tactical defense.” She surprises Erik by backing him up on these, against Charles’ protests. Moira’s main objective is of course to make them combat-ready, but she seems earnest when she says, quietly, “No one else should die without a fighting chance.”

So Erik has gone through the motions, but Charles’ confession of the breadth of his power runs through Erik’s mind at every moment, occupying every thought that isn’t his immediate needs. Looking back over the conversation, Erik realized Charles hadn’t really given much of an idea of the true dimensions of his power, but he’d said enough to frighten Erik, well and truly. What Charles had hinted at wasn’t mere mind-reading; it was complete control of the brain, at will and only limited by distance. If Charles ever acted willfully to the full extent of his powers, he would either be a supervillain or long dead, killed for the world’s own safety.

Charles. Erik studies him, in moments where he can get away with it. He’s half a head smaller than Erik, and Erik’s starving period in his early teens had only barely left him at a respectable male height. Charles is lean, too, not wiry but in that sort of way you are when you take care of your body as a matter of course. Under his clothes, he’s probably soft and pudgy, although he presents well enough in his usual horrific outfits. The outfits, and the rest of him, paint the foppish front so completely that it’s hard not to picture him with a cup of tea in his hand. It’s Charles’ actions you have to keep an eye on, and their effect; the way people found themselves persuaded into doing what he wanted, even without his power crackling through the air. You have to note how he doesn’t talk about his powers, but he can sit across from a man and tell him his own secrets without seeming to pause or strain. Erik sees the way he let this fledgling attempt at mutant community into his home without hesitation, how he looks pleased, like this is all according to his own design. And, how Charles speaks gently to the children, and ends up convincing them to take risks with their powers, to expand upon themselves. The way he makes leading a team look like a breeze, even though he has an admitted lack of experience at it.

There is someone different, under the surface, behind the eyes, of Charles Xavier, someone Charles doesn’t want anyone to meet. Erik intends to meet him.

\--*--

Erik has no trouble moving the radar dish, once Charles asks, although Erik idly wonders what communications he might be bringing down by rotating it. (The headline the next day is “CBS OFF AIR FOR WESTCHESTER THANKS TO SATELLITE MYSTERY.”)

“I had thought you would have a harder time with that. If you pardon my frankness, you’re a bit of an angry person, Erik, and I find my own powers are significantly hampered by emotion. Even if I cannot avoid being upset, or angry, I must find a balance point, some serenity in rage, or I’m basically useless.” Charles smiles ruefully at that, and taps his fingers on his thigh.

Erik nods, noting that it explains part of why Charles is so...aggressively agreeable. Emotion, if it comes with a loss of power, must feel terrible; getting upset means cutting off a whole part of himself.

Erik shrugs. “I have balance.”

Charles leans against the wall, relaxed and curious. He looks even more out-of-focus, fluffy, in the dusk-light. Being halfway into shadow suits him very well. “Really? Where does a man like you find serenity?”

“Not--serenity. Balance.” Erik hesitates. Should he do this? In light of recent revelations, it's even less advisable, but… “I’ll let you peek. If you promise not to look too deeply.”

Charles gestures at his temple. “You mean--really? I thought you didn’t want me anywhere near your mind?”

“I don’t think I can express it in words.” And by “can’t” he truly means he lacks the ability. Even thinking about trying to say it makes his throat start to close, his heart start to beat in double time. And honestly, at this point, Erik is curious as to whether Charles will honor Erik’s boundaries, if tempted. Having that knowledge now, rather than possibly continuing in the dark about it, is worth the possible sacrifice.

“Alright. Well, if you would just...think on it, focus on it, I’ll be able to go surface-deep, in a sense. To only go where your conscious thoughts lead me.” Charles straightens. “Are you ready?”

Erik nods, and he closes his eyes.

How Erik views his own sense of control is in a jumble of images and emotions, memories and whispers, whispers, whispers. The acrid tang of the smokestacks. The bending gates of Auschwitz. **214782.**   _“My name’s Charles Xavier.”_ Blood, his old companion, leaking from many people over many years. The man in the alley, how Erik had been burned by his longing. _“On your knees, Schatz.”_ The puckered pink of surgical scars, the way the women he associates with look only at his face once their clothes were off. The memory of the first time he’d had a crush on a boy, how he had been too obvious and his mother hadn’t let him out of the house for a week. (Her eyes were full of panic.) The slash of his grin in the mirror, adjusting his tie, ready to confront another Nazi with the wrath of his ghosts. _“Let’s just say I’m Frankenstein’s monster.”_ The way Erik sometimes sleeps for days, misses important meetings, and can only bring himself to shiver. The memory of Hannukah, of lighting the candles with his mother. The feeling of a gun pressed to his temple, a laugh. Herr Doktor, laughing, Herr Doktor, with his teeth on Erik’s neck, with the scalpel, with the hate behind his eyes, with the whispers in his ear. _“You are mine. Our souls are as one._

_Our souls are as one._

_As one….”_

Charles falls onto his ass, gasping.” Jesus Fucking Christ.”

Erik reaches down, helps him up. “Sorry about that. There isn’t any way to explain.”

“How can you be so casual about it?” Charles has tears in his eyes. “If I felt that way every day, I wouldn’t even know I was a mutant. There’d be nothing left in me but... _that.”_

Erik rolls his neck. “It comes with long practice. I’m very aware of who I am, and my purpose here. I cannot forget, but as long as I have that purpose, I am fine.”

“And if we capture Shaw? Or kill him.”

The answer in Erik's thoughts is so present in the air that Erik is not surprised that Charles reels back from it, physically struck. After Herr Doktor there is only a void. Frankenstein’s monster doesn’t have a purpose without a creator, and Erik doesn’t intend to continue his charade of life after he sees Herr Doktor killed.

“I’m sorry,” Charles whispers, a tear falling down his cheek.

Erik smiles at the tear. It’s real, the silly sod. “Don’t be sorry for me. I have such a happy ending to look forward to.”

  
Erik nods, once, and wanders away into the encroaching night.


	4. feared and hated.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erik needs some things spelled out for him.
> 
> WARNING for gay slurs used ironically by gay people, and discussion of homophobia.

Charles seems to have convinced the children that Erik Needs Normal Human Interaction, without having told them why, which just proves that Charles is a master manipulator. When Erik retreats from exercise and drills to contemplate their next moves, or just to be alone, he keeps getting interrupted. By Raven, insisting that he needs to see the latest episode of _Guiding Light_ , or he’ll kick himself forever. (He declines.) By Hank and Alex, asking about possible cooperative combat maneuvers. (They’re on the right track, but the Fastball Special has to be the worst idea Erik has ever heard.) By Angel, asking if he wants to sit out back and smoke with her. (He accepts; they sit in silence for twenty minutes until Angel puts a hand on his knee, looks deep into his eyes, and then huffs and leaves.)

Charles, is of course, the most tenacious and tricky of all these opponents. He somehow tricks Erik into nightly chess games, and then engages Erik in deep conversations on a variety of topics. Charles tends to stray into the esoteric, but he gets better at explaining academic ideas without making Erik acutely aware that he never went to high school. Erik finds himself frustrated and amused. He’s never been anyone’s debate partner before, never been asked to examine his beliefs so clinically. Charles doesn’t do much to budge Erik’s worldview, but in between bouts of frustration he shows admiration for the arguments Erik puts forth. He assesses Erik’s beliefs and opinions against the philosophy of Socrates and doesn’t leave Erik feeling like he’s inferior.

Charles puts special effort into equalizing them on other fronts as well. He could easily assume the role of leader by himself, but he makes sure the hierarchy, with Charles and Erik leading and Moira advising, is clearly defined. Erik expected to primarily teach the children about using their powers creatively and physical education, but Charles turns to him once and goes, “Erik, what would you say are the most important things to know how to say in French?” Erik ends up teaching important phrases and how to make their horrific English pronunciations understandable in French, German, and Spanish (and Portugese for Hank and Raven). Erik enlists Angel and Alex as teaching assistants in sessions he calls “The Very Real World,” where they discuss things like deflecting attention from yourself, how to make money in a strange city on short notice, and how to hotwire vehicles. (Charles is pissed that they do a demonstration with his Porsche, but it’s not like he has any less expensive cars in the garage.)

One evening, Erik comes back to his room after spending the day pushing Cassidy off tall places, to find that the squishy armchairs he has openly loathed have been replaced with Eames chairs, black and wood and simple.

Erik opens Charles’ suite door, intending to tell him he’s an idiot with too much money, but Charles is already relaxing with a scotch, chess set ready.

“I was hoping you’d stop bitching about your back in those old chairs. Do you like them?”

“Yes,” Erik hedges.

“Then what better to waste my stupid amounts of money on? Come on, we still haven’t resolved our standoff from last night.”

Erik doesn’t really understand why Charles seems to _like_ him, even when Erik is purposefully obnoxious about his pessimistic worldview. Charles gets frustrated and loud and disagrees, but he doesn’t take it personally, and several times stops Erik from leaving when Erik feels he’s no longer welcome.

“Sit down, sit down,” Charles says, every time. “Just let me walk off my annoyance, you stupid prig.”

Charles then walks around the room a few times, affectionately calls Erik an “idiot” or a “dick,” and sits back down to their game.

It all leaves Erik feeling…unbalanced. These are not the interpersonal relationships he is used to.

He’s never been valued before. Mostly just feared and hated.

\--*--

Erik is about to enter Charles’ study. It’s a little earlier than usual, but Erik’s gotten bored with his book and assumes Charles will be free. Erik’s impatient to start a new chess game, but when he gets to the door, Charles is talking quietly.

 

_“_ _here is the deepest secret nobody knows_

_(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud_

_and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows_

_higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)”_

 

Charles’ voice is soft; he sounds like he’s talking to a lover. Does Charles…have, a lover? He’s spent every night with Erik, so Erik hadn’t thought so, but that tone isn’t the sort you used to simply recite poetry. It’s saying something with the words. Erik isn’t the sort to appreciate(/understand/tolerate) poetry, but even he can hear meaning in the words as Charles speaks them.

Perhaps Charles is talking to Raven, more platonically? Or Moira? Charles can’t be taking a student as a lover; he’s not…that. Either way, it isn’t Erik’s place to spy…but that’s never stopped him before.

“That’s…wow,” Alex Summers says from inside, and Erik is struck again. Alex? Erik peeks, and it’s definitely Alex’s blonde hair, half-turned away from the crack in the door. Erik’s nauseated by the sight. Charles would read a poem like that, to a boy not yet grown?

Erik is legitimately feeling out the metal around him and preparing to stab Charles, assuming the worst, when Alex says, “Have you read this to him? Or, y’know, told him how you really feel?”

Him? Not Alex?

“No,” Charles says, almost insolent. “He has to know. I’ve never denied the connection between us. I mean, it’s written _right there.”_

Written right—

Erik. He’s talking about Erik.

“He doesn’t strike me as the type that thinks about stuff before you scream it at him. What do you have to lose?”

“Everything. He’s lived through the worst persecution in human history. By being part of the X-Men, he’s already risking another kind, exposing himself to the world if things go wrong. To ask him to even consider—“

“You’re not even giving him the chance to think about it, though.”

“He’s already thought of it! He must have!” A large _phoomph_ of Charles sinking down into his favorite leather chair. “He’s lived with it since he was born, Alex. I don’t think I alone can change his mind.”

They’re silent for long moments.

“No…I can’t do it.” Charles’ words are almost a sigh. “The only reason he’s still alive is revenge. I doubt that I make a good substitute.”

Footsteps approach the door. Alex has noted the gap, and peers out of it, checking to see if they’ve been overheard.

Erik is back in his room before Alex can find him, his door closing to just in time. Erik is back in his room, staring at walls that mean nothing, can say nothing over the words whispering in his ears.

_I fear_

_no fate(for you are my fate, my sweet)_

\--*--

Erik waits until the early morning, when only a few people are awake. He walks into the kitchen, grabs Alex by the scruff, and hauls him out of the side door into the chilly morning.

“Hey, what, are we doing laps _now?”_ Alex cries, waving the coffeepot that’s still in his hands. “I get the whole ‘stay vigilant’ thing but you’re taking this to asshole levels.”

Erik waits to speak until they’re out of the immaculately groomed view of the mansion’s windows, behind a tall oak. He goes to throw Alex against the tree, out of sense memory more than anything, and stops himself just in time.

Erik opens his mouth to speak, but ends up pacing, instead. He looks at Alex a few times, just wondering, before he finally says, “Why did he talk to you?”

Alex drinks directly from the coffeepot. “Come again, Magnetron?”

“Why did he—Magnetron? Is that one of your ideas or Raven’s?”

“Hank’s. I think he’s on the right track, man! You should sleep on it, it grows on you. Although I still think Magneto is the best one.”

“No thanks.” Erik paces. He desperately wants to go hunt down Hank now, right this minute, and terrorize him about the dumb codename. Anything to get out of truly committing to this conversation.

Anything to pretend he’s not haunted by what he overheard.

Deep breaths. Erik’s not a coward. He can face this.

“Why did Charles talk to you? Last night?”

Alex’s eyes narrow; the other children might need a few more steps in this conversation, but Alex can read posture, energy. He’s had to, in his youthful life of crime. “You heard some of that, huh?”

“Yes. At first I thought—“ Erik gestures uselessly between the house and Alex.

Alex laughs. “Oh, god, ew! Though, that proves me right; the Prof really should be straight with you. Or, you know, not straight. But honest, at least, ‘cause you’re an idiot.”

Erik glares.

“I’m a f*g, Magneto.” Alex throws his arms wide, smile sardonic. “Grade-A gay boy right here. The Prof wanted to talk to his own kind, and you, me, and X are the only ones in the house that go that way.”

“You’re…” Erik could pick so many ways to end that sentence. He closes his eyes, breathes heavily, and chooses the most neutral option. “…open?”

“Eh, I got outed right before I got put in prison.” Alex shrugs. “Apparently keeping mum about chest laser beams is one thing, but when you hit on one of your accomplices  _one time…_ At any rate, the word got out among the inmates, and now I figure, if I could live through _that_ bullshit, might as well be honest with myself and take life by the nads.”

Erik slaps both palms to his face. God, does he hate this stupid fucking kid, and this stupid fucking situation. He hates that his heart beats fast just having this conversation, that he wants to slap Alex until he shuts up and stays quiet and _stays safe._ He’s not a coward, _not_ a coward, but there’s only so much he can bear.

“So…Charles is in love with me,” Erik blurts out. They both recoil once it’s been said, as if Erik has just vomited onto Alex’s feet.

“I super don’t think it’s up to me to have this conversation with you.” Alex drains the coffeepot. “There’s not enough coffee _or_ booze _or_ drugs in the world to make that worthwhile. Plus I’d fuck it up royal. Not that you’ll do better, but he deserves to have this conversation with you.”

“I can’t.”

“What is with you two fucking idiots?” Alex grabs his hair, genuinely frustrated now rather than laconic and superior. “You both like each other, you both wanna fuck each other. Do it without talking if you need to, but it’s not like you’re Mismatches, with soulmarks that aren’t paired together. You’re soulmates, man, you’re supposed to be the ones to know how to handle each other.”

“I don’t—“

“Okay, yeah, so, stop with that bullshit too.” Alex waves the coffeepot threateningly under Erik’s nose. “You fuckin’ like him, and I get that that’s hard because of your bullshit brain telling you that you’re some kind of worthless piece of shit if you like a guy. I’ve been there. But you can’t take back your droppin’ of eaves. The Professor’s heart is breaking into a million pieces trying to keep _your_ little black Grinch heart from having to consider new experiences. So maybe consider that life is short and you should fuck who you want to fuck, huh?”

Alex stomps off back towards the mansion, muttering, practically steaming with anger.

Erik stands, in the shade of the oak tree, for a long, long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is rewrite #6 for this chapter. I kept trying to make it work with Erik coming to the realization on his own, which obviously doesn't work because...why would he? He's in Denial, and it's not in Egypt. I haven't focused on the kids just because I don't have as good of a sense for them as I do Erik and Charles, but once I saw Alex as the brash device I needed to confront Erik with his demons, he came into sharper focus. It's also helped that Apocalypse came out in between the time I first started writing this and when I've been really working on it, and that I learned a little more about his 80s comics canon. Alex just wants to be a normal guy; it's his extraordinary circumstances that have put him where he is. "Feared and hated" also comes from the comics canon; the repeated tagline for the early X-Men is that they were trying to do good "in a world that fears and hates them." Which--boss. I don't know of any other comics that were so strong in concept right off the bat, so good job at thematic consistency, X-Men.
> 
> I'm working on the rest of the fic, but I'll be 100% honest--I still don't know how it ends...


	5. Bright

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erik steps into the light.

Erik, _shockingly_ , doesn’t listen to Alex’s advice. There’s a moment, under the oak tree, where it makes absolute, perfect sense; where Erik feels his neck and face get hot and something huge, tremulous, balloon inside his chest. He marches up the lawn to the house, suddenly certain, ready to grab Charles and do....something.

Except the X-Men, (and they are already sitting straight, ready for the role,) are all crowded around the TV. Apparently the Americans have put their toes right up to the line, and the Russians are responding in kind. The Bay of Pigs, as it will be called, has started.

And Herr Doktor, of course, has his fingerprints all over it.

Erik goes back to his bedroom, presumably to pack for a trip to Cuba, a call to action that they’re getting ready to receive.The hot feeling has dissipated into the air, and Erik is glad. Listening to Alex’s advice has never been, and never will be, a good idea.

Erik can’t...want. It doesn’t fit. They’re so close, within grasp of another chance to truly take Shaw out, to end him.

And beyond that, Erik has nothing, will have nothing. To contemplate other scenarios is folly.

It’s like Charles himself said. Could a person, any single person, be a substitute for revenge? Revenge has powered his life for almost two decades; he can’t even picture what his life would look like without it. How he’d keep the monsters at bay if he doesn’t have anymore to kill, just the immortal ghosts in his mind.

 _Schatz, schatz, schatz_ , _on your knees,_ whispers the voice in Erik’s head.

Love is not for monster men. It is for fools.

~~*~~

Erik goes to the lab, to look over the uniforms Hank has made. Erik is considering the best way to “lose” the one in his size when he hears Charles bark a laugh behind him.

Erik turns, uniform still held well away from him, and Charles approaches, eyes sparkling. His is a kind derision, but it is there all the same.

“How….creative,” Charles says, his words forming laughter. “We’ll certainly be able to see each other on the battlefield.”

Erik...smiles, and he immediately feels cross about it. He is serious. He is not engaging.

He will not encourage Charles to break his heart over him. There’s being a monster, and there’s being unfair.

“It’s not my colors, but it’ll do,” Erik mutters, folding it up and shoving it under his arm. He moves to turn away, to leave, but Charles puts the lightest of touches on his shoulder.

Charles isn’t all that much shorter than him, but the fact that he has to reach up to reach Erik’s shoulder almost makes him look smaller, as if he’s in supplication.

“We’ll get him this time,” Charles says, quiet. Not sure of what he’s saying, not really, but projecting the sort of confidence a leader needs to project to his team.

Charles is sitting behind a mask, Erik realizes, of politeness and team dynamics. He also realizes that he hasn’t had Charles put on a front for Erik in...a while.

How did they come to know each other, like this? When exactly did the ever-present tension become...knowing? Seeing each other, and being seen?

Charles smiles, bland, but reassuring. “We’ll get him. And then we can think about making this a real school. What would you think of that? We could help mutants control their powers. Perhaps provide shelter for more mutants in need.”

Charles knows Erik’s plans, post-Doktor; he _knows them_. But he’s talking blandly about the future as if it exists for Erik, if they succeed.

As if there are options, for Erik.

He’s not even asking Erik to stay for himself, which Erik almost expected. A confession. Instead it’s an appeal to Erik’s longing, the way he’s seen a community come together here in a way that is more delicate and unique than any of them know.

“You would be a great language teacher,” Charles adds, and Erik snorts.

“You want me to teach a horde of brats to say ‘fuck’ in Korean?” Erik asks. It’s meant to be dismissive, to _sound_ dismissive. To clear the air of all this...hope.

It doesn’t sound dismissive. It sounds like an actual question.

Charles pats him, then removes the hand. Even if Erik didn’t say it quite right, Charles takes the cue to withdraw.

“I’m sure you could teach them a lot,” Charles says, wandering back towards the door. “Surely you know how to ask for directions in quite a few languages. That’s useful.”

“Ah, so I’m useful.” Erik thinks the words might have started life as a joke, except they aren’t one. He’s not sure what his words are saying, only what he feels. Only what almost feels like it might come out of his mouth if he doesn’t fill it with other words.

Charles shrugs. His eyes, for a moment, are lanterns, police spotlights. Bright even in a bright room, totally focused on Erik. Then he turns to the door.

“You’re more than you know,” Charles says, to the doorknob, and he leaves.

Erik wonders how, despite his best intentions, he keeps being the one left behind.

~~*~~

Erik almost doesn’t believe it; what makes it feel real is how much Charles screams.

Herr Doktor--Shaw, trapped, humbled. Almost human, as he looks across at Erik.

Erik tells him that he agreed with him--it’s as much of a confession as Erik will make to the man, that the way he shaped Erik is so indelible that, try as he might, Erik cannot be anything except Herr Doktor’s creation, his Frankenstein flesh.

Yes, Erik agrees that mutants must rule--because community is important, because it cannot be protected if it is always on the fringe, always feared and hated. It will inevitably fall, inevitably ground under someone’s heel, unless it _is_ the heel. But Erik thinks Herr Doktor mostly says those things to put a slick veneer on himself. What Herr Doktor really wants is to wear the boots, to make people hurt and hurt and hurt until the whole world is pain.

So Erik puts a coin through his brain, and shows him what pain really feels like.

Erik breathes, hard, staring at the slump of the man he once called Herr Doktor, collapsing to the floor. He is just flesh now, and Erik cannot hear the whispers as he looks at him. Just Charles’ scream.

Erik looks outside, at the bright beach, surrounded by ships armed to the teeth, no doubt bustling with important men deciding how to respond to something they’ve never seen before. Mutants are in the light now. Erik is in the light.

In the light.

Erik hadn’t known how free he would feel, now that Herr Doktor is dead. He supposes that, in a way, he always worried that Herr Doktor would find a way to recapture him. That the monster would have to rejoin his master.

But he’s dead. He’s on the floor, his would-be empire smashed into a million scrambling pieces, and Erik is the one left standing.

He’s a creation--Herr Doktor’s creation.

But maybe that is not all he is. Maybe...maybe instead of the void, there is light.

Erik steps into the light. He sees Charles, across the beach. Lowering his hands. He’s not screaming. although Erik can still hear it. The sound is beautiful; Erik feels like there’s something wrong, in that idea, but he doesn’t remember why.

He starts talking. He becomes dimly aware that Charles starts shaking his head at some point--Erik is confused. Isn’t he saying what Charles wanted?

He’s trying to figure out a way to stay, a way to have this all end well. He’s trying to find a solution. Isn’t that what Charles always wanted? For Erik to try to stay?

(Later, Erik won’t actually remember what he said--Angel will repeat it to him, her eyes alight.. Later, Erik won’t actually remember too many things.

He will remember the important things, however.)

Charles is in his arms, bleeding, shot. Erik feels something swoop within him, the moment of joy, hope, _light at the end of the tunnel_ crashing into the rising bile. He tries to murder Moira, the way he would have any other day. The way he would have yesterday, or a few hours ago.

But Charles looks right at him, and says, “You did this.”

Erik’s powers buckle like his knees.

(Erik will later convince himself that Charles cut his powers off deliberately, that he saved Moira. He will get up to shower, and Azazel will have to remind him to take off the helmet _._ )

Charles looks up at him. There are no masks here--there aren’t room for any. Charles looks broken, like a small toy some brat smashed in anger. His voice, his face, look broken.

“I had hoped…” Charles trails off, clearly not wanting to give a shape to what his hopes had been. It is enough for Charles, to simply imply that his hopes did not lead _here_.

Of course they didn’t. Charles, with the simple _who are you_ on his skin, never saw this coming. Or he did, but chose not to. Because to do otherwise would be tantamount to losing faith in Erik.

He has always had faith in Erik, Erik realizes. Charles has known from their first meeting that Erik is a cold-blooded killer, a man with ruthlessness and wildness in every part of him, both nature and nurture. He has never stopped supporting Erik. He has never expressed doubts. Even now, as he bleeds out on the beach, he simply _disagrees_ with Erik. Erik looks in his open face and knows that Charles is more heartbroken that they are parting, than he is in the nature of their disagreement. After all, they have always disagreed.

Just never quite....like this. Charles has almost trained Erik, at this point, to expect a reconciliation. But Charles isn’t offering one, and Erik can’t see where they might find one.

Erik never saw a point beyond this moment, beyond killing Herr Doktor. In a way, he was already planning to leave Charles, simply by leaving him alive. It should be so easy, to part ways, to do what he feels is right, even though he’s tentatively decided against suicide. It should be so easy.

It should be so easy.

Even now, Charles seems to glow, even in this bright place, bright against bright sand. He smiles up at Erik, and Erik almost reels from it. From the simple wattage of a smile.

“I never regretted you.” Charles puts his hand on Erik’s arm, over the numbers, the mark, although he cannot touch them through the jumpsuit. Charles never stops staring at Erik. “I never wanted anyone else. Just so you know.”

Erik huffs. “You didn’t have a choice.”

“We all have a choice. And I would have chosen you.”

Erik looks at Charles. If he were a different man, he would say something, offer some sort of...ending, for this. A catharsis for them both.

But Erik is not a different man. If he was, they never would have made it here.

Erik just nods. He clasps Charles’ arm, over his whole soulmark, over where he knows there is crisp, black, unvarnished letters. Words that can never be revoked, or written over.

He looks at Charles, and after a moment, Charles nods.

This is not an ending. It is just a goodbye.

~~*~~

Erik gets up, and walks away, and leaves.


End file.
